Penny Pinnafore in progress

First I want to say this is a good pattern.  It is important to read the introduction provided with the pattern pieces. (how do I know this?)  I made some adjustments to the pattern that ended up creating a wonky pattern.  I went back and retraced the pattern pieces selecting a better size as I did go from size 4 to size 6.  I also shortened too much in one area that instructions advise not doing what I did!!  I could have saved myself some time.

The front and back sections are complete.  I attached the front and back shoulders and basted the sides for fitting.  I found during this fitting that I need to take deeper shoulder seams and take in the waist area a little more.  I may have to cut some of the length off.

This fabric has the best drape for this pattern. Fabric is from EmmaOneSock. I will finish this up tomorrow.  I only have to sew up the sleeves and insert those and hem everything.

Here is a photo of the dress in progress laying on cutting table.

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Happy July 4th!

I hope you have plans for a fun day whatever you choose to do!  I have been doing little this, little that. 

My computer has been on the fritz for weeks now!  It was Windows Vista operating system, which next to another old operating system from Microsoft-Windows ME, was a pain when I bought it years ago.  It crashed twice and after restoring the second time it worked well for several years.  The computer was 5 years old and I think that is good life time for a computer, it was a HP.

My new computer which I installed this AM is also a HP running Windows 8.  Setting it up was one of the easiest set ups I think I have had.  I took my time and took deep, deep breaths and worked like a charm. 

I did spend a little time in the sewing room making fitting adjustments to the Pinnafore dress pattern.  One final pattern fitting and I think I will be ready to cut out the fabric. 

I will be grilling soon.  This is a lazy 4th for us as DH has had to work a lot of overtime hours this past week.  I love to grill so will be ready to fire up it up  shortly.

Penny Pinnafore Pattern

I acquired this pattern sometime ago.  After making the decision to use the EOS fabric-solid royal blue with striped floral print-I wanted to be able to showcase the two fabrics.  Looking through various Vogue, Butterick and Simplicity patterns, I thought about some indie patterns I had ordered and downloaded. 

I printed out all pattern pieces and then taped the pieces together.  That is time consuming but the pattern draft seems good.  The pattern instructions include a pictorial tutorial (say that three times fast) for those who may need additional help in sewing the pattern and there is a condensed version for those who have more experience.  The pattern is rated intermediate.

After printing and taping, I took Swedish tracing paper and traced what I consider to be my sizes from the measurements included.  You use your high bust measurement to determine the bust size and can easily transition from one size to the next if you find you fall between sizes, which I do.

The pattern lines are printed in various colors to help in viewing and cutting your size.  Reviews seem to be good for this pattern and hope I have the same success.  As usual I will pin fit the pattern once I finish tracing, I still have one main dress part to trace.

In addition to working on this, I decided to wash several knit fabrics that I want to work with on some knit tops soon.  Two pieces I want to make up soon

EOS thin mesh knit-red floral with blue white stripes

Steel blue bamboo knit from Vogue fabrics

I plan to use this Simplicity pattern

I am going to use the mesh knit  as the black lace fabric is used in the black and gray top above. I have not pulled the pattern pieces for this yet.  Long weekend coming up next week so want to get a jump on the sewing if I can.

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M6887 passes its test!

I wore the McCall's dress yesterday to work and for late evening meeting.  The dress passed the wearability test with flying colors.

Front View

Back view

Of course here are the semi side and side views

I decided to go beltless as my waist does not exist and I am used to not wearing belts.  The print is very busy so the dress looks more like a sheath style dress.

I can see me making another dress from this pattern, using blocking and piping.  With all fitting adjustments made, it should be an easier dress to make the next time.

I do now realize what I did with the sleeves was not exactly what I should have done.  It was not a huge wearing issue yesterday.

Up next--still to be decided.

Sew What's Next?

I made my final tweak to the dress last night and it is ready to wear Thursday.  The sleeves still pull a little bit and I think that has to do with the adjustment to the shoulder and maybe I did not need to alter the sleeves as much as I thought.  It is wearable and I can quit obsessing about it and move on.

I have a lot of fabric and a lot of patterns making it hard for me right now to pick one.  After making this recent garment I want something easy peasy!  I have washed a few fabrics to get them ready for sewing whenever I decide what they will be.

I want to make the red denim jacket and that is ready to go; not going to be an easy sew so keep putting it off.  I have been browsing blogs for inspiration, as well reading each morning while having breakfast Pattern Review reviews.

I have decided that I am going to use a blue colorway as my DH pointed out to me that I have been on a kick to sew lavendar/purple shades of late.  He is right.  So these two fabrics will be my next project and what that will be is still undecided.  Both purchased earlier this year from EmmaOneSock.

Sneak Peek

Friday evening we had a terrible storm to come through our area right about the time I got home from the grocery store after work.  Lots of lightening and wind causing us to lose power until early Saturday AM.  So my plans to work on the final things left to do with the current dress in progress was postponed until late Saturday evening.  I finally finished the dress today and I have one tweak to make.

I did not get all "gussied" up for the photos so excuse the cropping.

Front view

Side view

Front view with belt

I did a lot of the lining attachments using the sewing machine and less by hand.  I will show more details of that in a later post.  I don't wear many dresses with waist lines as mine as expanded over the years and lately I have been reading or viewing articles about wearing belts, who should or shouldn't and wide or narrow.  For petite (short) person with hardly a waist. a narrow belt is recommended.

For me being petite, I am still rather long waisted and with the FBA I made it helped by moving the waist line where mine is (or should be).  With 20/20 hindsight, adding piping would probably have given some vertical lines which would help make the dress look slimmer on me and break up some of the floral print.

McCall's patterns are usually too wide for me in the shoulder area and this was not exception.  In an earlier post I wrote about taking a deeper back seam in the upper back.  After shortening the shoulder length by 3/8 and sewing 5/8 seams the back now feels a little too tight so I plan to redo that back seams to give me a little more width in the back as when I raise or move my arms it now feels to tight.

I have to admit I will have to get use to the waist line as I normally wear sheath style dresses.  Because this dress is rather busy due to the print, I don't think that people will notice to much about all the seams and that waist line seam.

I plan to wear the dress later this week for and will update photos then.

Not sure what's next but my list is long!

McCall's Dress progress

I have made lots of progress with the dress and hope to finish it this evening.  I thought I would share what I have achieved yesterday and this morning.

After basting the dress fabric side seams for fitting purposes, this was after inserting the zipper, I discovered I needed to take up some of the upper back width and was able to do this at the back princess seams.

I then had to adjust the back/side back and front/side front by changing from 5/8 to 3/8 at waist.

When you stitch the vertical seams first, adjustments like this are easier to do.

I learned something new recently about attaching a dress lining to the dress fabric by stitching the lining to the zipper first, then attach to the neckline. It is always a learning experience when reading other's blogs.  Sigrid posted about this method on one of her recent posts. I printed out how to do this from Amy at Sewaholic's website.

You can see from these photos how attractive this looks when completed.

I have used a similar method that focus is really on facings but it works with lining as well. 

Here is the dress with lining attached; next step is to attach the sleeves, then attach lining to back vent and hem!!

I may get this completed before summer ends yet; sewing takes longer to do these days but I am pushing for quality and fit.  I am having issues today with neck and shoulder pain by over staying too long at the sewing machine.  I had to take a break for awhile to let pain calm down.  I hate when that happens as it truly slows me down.  Tomorrow acupuncture which has truly helped.  That's how I spell relief.

More to share later.

Traveling

I spent two days traveling for work this week.  I had hoped that I could visit the Hancock store while there. It just did not happen.

I did do a few small things this AM in my sewing room before going into the office; preparing the invisible zipper and marking the fabric for aligning the zipper.  Small thing and necessary.

Tomorrow I travel again, only a short one day trip.  There is a fabric store in that area also and one I have not been to recently, so maybe I can get in a quick visit.

I did order two new patterns, one is a dolman sleeve knit top from Jalie and the other is a pleated peplum top from an indie pattern company call Lolita's patterns.  Once I finish the dress, I am going to whip up a couple of quick knit tops.

I did wash the red stretch denim fabric and will wash it one or two more times to help the denim from bleeding onto sewing machine and hands while sewing.  I have a Kwik Sew pattern I will probably use to make this, though I have been looking at other patterns like Burda for an alternative.

I hope your sewing time has been productive.  More later.

Back to work and less sewing

I returned to work this past week after a nice staycation.  It was a long work week as expected with playing catch up, working toward some deadlines, and ending the week with a nice celebration of achievement.

As to sewing, there was a few brief moments.  I did turn up the hem on the McCall's skirt that I completed the previous week.and will sew that later this weekend.  I completed the lining for McCall's 6887 dress.
I used that for fitting after basting the side seams and pinning in the zipper.

There were a few tweaks needed.  I removed stitches from the front bodice right below the bust and through the waist and tummy area.  Restitched  that area using 3/8 seam allowance.  This provided a nicer fit.  I may have to reduce the side seams from above the waist through the hip area from 5/8 to 3/8 and will do that after I make adjustments to the dress fabric and fit again.

Lining for M6887

View of back pieces pinned to AlmaMarie

Updates to follow!  I hope your sewing weekend is going well.

It's beginning to look

like a new floral print dress.

Since my last post I have made quite a bit of progress.  Completed all the pattern adjustments, cut out the fabric and lining, and started some sewing early this AM.  I took the following photos and then had a brief window of time to complete the lining for the front of the dress. 

Dress front, did not add piping.

Side view of dress on Alma Marie. 

Lining in progress this AM, now is complete

Hopefully will find time during the week to sew in short spurts as I know being away from office for a week will have a lot of challenges for me when I return.  I did enjoy my time off and have a glimpse of what retirement might look like!!!

McCall's 6887

As noted previously I am going to sew this dress pattern.  There are several pattern pieces with this dress and it has a lining. 

I pin fitted the pattern.  The pattern has separate bodice pieces  for B,C, and D cups. I purchased the multi-size pattern with largest size being 14 which is size I buy for upper bust measurement.  I need a 16-18 for the bust area but that size is on the other multi-sized grouping of sizes.  Thus I had to make a FBA of 2 inches.

I always use a 16-18 for waist and for this pattern I had to add 2 1/2 inches for the waist.  Then I had my usual forward shoulder adjustment, swayback and shortening the back length of the bodice.  I also reduced the length between waist and hip by 2 inches and then added an inch back at the hem.  That's a lot of scotch tape and time to make these adjustments.  The skirt portion has front and side front pattern pieces  as well as back and side back pattern pieces, making the waist adjustment for a lot of pieces. 

Normally when I add to waist area, I just add on X inches to the side piece tapering at hip area.  This time I used a different method that I learned from Craftsy video-"Sew a Better Fit" by Lynda Maynard. It helps keep the pattern draft more intact and keeps cutting and seam allowances more in line as well.  It was more time consuming in some respects but I think it will provide a more precise fit.  We will see.

I  thought about overlapping the bodice to the skirt and making it more of a sheath style.    If I wanted that style I already have patterns adjusted for fit that I could have used so I decided to go with the pattern design.

My plan is to cut out the dress and lining sometime tomorrow.